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No More-Know More!

A Campaign Against Sexual Assault on Campus

Social Justice University (SJU) is a public research university founded in 1893. It is the
flagship campus for the states system. Social Justice University ranks 17th in the nation and fifth
among public universities in producing Rhodes Scholars. Rolling Stones labeled the university
the most scenic campus in America and Outside Magazine called it among the top 10 colleges
nationally for combing academic quality and outdoor recreation. The campus consists of 220
acres and is bordered to the east by mountain the north by a river. The campus comprises 64
buildings, including a 26,500-seat football stadium and a 7,500 seat multi-purpose arena where
the universitys basketball teams play.
SJU offers students a variety of on campus housing. There are nine different residence
halls offering single rooms, double rooms, triple rooms, three person pods, and four-person
suites. They have one all-female hall, one all-male hall, and seven co-ed halls available. The
university has a residency policy that requires all students with less than 30 earned college
credits reside in the residence halls unless this requirement has been waived by the office of the
Dean of Students. Students who have earned more than 30 credits are eligible to live off campus.
Greek life is a live and well at Social Justice University and it offers students a unique
opportunity to lead a balanced college life with a focus on academics, brotherhood/sisterhood,
community service, leadership and responsible social interaction. Greek Life allows students to
make meaningful and lasting friendships with individuals who share similar ideals and common
purposes. Currently, there are four sororities and 7 fraternities active on campus. Approximately
20% of the student body is actively involved in Greek life and all of them live off campus in their
Greek house. Social Justice University has a total of 15 intercollegiate programs which includes
men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, indoor track and field, outdoor
track and field, football, women's golf, women's soccer, men's and women's tennis, women's
softball and women's volleyball. None of the athletes live in the regular residence halls. Instead
they live in a campus compound divided up in various sections called the athlete village.
For many decades, Social Justice University was thought to be a save haven from the
outside world. Women felt safe walking around campus alone after dark or leaving their doors
unlocked while they slept at night. However, more recently, with heightened national attention to
campus safety, the most common advice they get from family and friends as they leave home
now isnt have fun or do your best, its be careful. Now when female students arrive at
SJU they come with a list of warnings: Never walk alone. Carry mace. Dont take Uber, because
your driver may kidnap you. Keep the number of the police chief in your cell phone. Dr. Due-
Wright, the Dean of Students says, students take this advice to heart but the problem is they are
thinking they need to protect themselves from a stranger hiding in the bushes who will attack
them from behind. In fact, during a mandatory sexual assault awareness workshop that the
university sponsored last spring, Dr. Due-Wright and her staff found students, both men and
women, held four different, but related, ideas, which they termed folk beliefs that made the
students resistant to the idea that one persons inappropriate behavior towards another person
could be classified as sexual assault and/or sexual violence.
One folk belief that students held was made clear from the beginning of the workshop
was Harm (sexual assault) is direct, extreme, and the product of an individual's intentions. This
folk belief allows students to believe that in order for a sexual assault to take place it has to be
premeditated by the perpetrator and/or it has to be done in an extremely forcible and violent

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manner. The truth, though, is any unwanted/unwelcomed touching or fondling of a persons
sexual body parts is classified as a sexual assault. A second folk belief was, Harm (sexual
assaults) is the product of the psyche. What students think when they believe this folk belief is
that a person who would sexually assault someone is a psychologically flawed person and that is
why they can sexually assault another person. This description may be accurate for the stranger
rapist (a person who does not know their victim) but 80 percent of sexual assaults that take place
on college campuses the victim knows their assailant and many of these assaults are named date
rape because the victim was out on a date or was dating the perpetrator. The third folk belief
many students held was, for harm (sexual assault) to occur, there must be an, individual to
blame. Unfortunately, due to the explicit sexualization of women in our pop culture, the idea that
women are sex objects and their bodies are intended specifically for mens sexual pleasure, the
individual that is blamed, more often than not, is the victim instead of the perpetrator. Dr. Due-
Wright and her staff find this folk belief particularly harmful, because it allows our society to
turn a blind eye towards the dehumanization of women that can be seen through, music, videos,
song lyrics, movies, TV shows, advertising, magazine, commercials, etc. Research show, the
more women are seen as sexual objects the easier it is for men and other women to blame the
victim (why was she wearing that short skirt), justify the perpetrator actions (she had it coming
to her) and to minimize the violent act (she was just playing hard to get, but she know she
wanted to). The fourth folk belief, beliefs or practices that students cherish or enjoy cannot be
harmful. Dr. Due-Wright and her staff realize their female students, who hold these beliefs are
not suggesting they enjoy having their person violated sexually. However, they also realize that
their female students hold a very narrow view of what constitutes sexual assault or sexual
violence. Our society has socialized both men and women to believe that men have domination
over women thus they (women) become their property as well as are required to bend to their
wants and wishes. Therefore, when a man they are dating behaves in an aggressive and/or
possessive manner towards them, women internalize this (bad) behavior as acceptable and end
up feeling loved as opposed to harmed.
Dr. Due-Wright knows that she cannot give up on trying to raise SJU students awareness
of sexual assaults on campus. However, instead of using her current staff to design another
awareness campaign she decided to ask your team to create an awareness campaign for them.
Not wanting your team to make the same mistakes her team made she has provided you all with
some specific guidelines to follow.

Sexual Assault Awareness Campaign Guidelines

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Instead of developing an awareness campaign designed for the entire campus, Dr. Due-Wright
request you target your campaign towards a particular audience:
A. Residence Life
B. Greek Life
C. Athletics
In addition to narrowing your target audience, Dr. Due-Wright believes your team should have a
message that addresses one of three prolific problems on their campus.
A. Alcohol/Drug Use/Abuse
B. Male Entitlement/Domination over Women
C. Sexual Consent (either no means no or yes means yes)
Dr. Due-Wright and her team were not prepared to dispel students Folk Beliefs. Therefore,
another requirement of your campaign is it must specifically address one of the four folk beliefs:
1. Harm is direct, extreme, and the product of an individual's intentions
2. Harm is the product of the psyche
3. For harm to occur, there must be an, individual to blame
4. Beliefs or practices that students cherish or enjoy cannot be harmful
Final, Dr. Due-Wright realize that a picture is worth a thousand words, therefore, your
awareness campaigns message should visually depicted your verbal message.

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Case Study Questions

When considering the specific role of awareness raising as a part of prevention, it is important to
know that heightened awareness is a precursor to changes in attitudes and behavior, and can
contribute to the creation of a supportive environment for policy change and implementation.
The development of an awareness-raising campaign needs to be based on clearly defined
objectives, expected results and activities designed to achieve these. Formulating objectives,
defining clearly whose awareness will be raised, why this target audience was chosen, and how it
will be reached, will help to clarify the expected contribution towards the broader strategy on
ending violence against women. To that end, please answer the following questions:

1) Which audience did your team decide to target? What is your rationale for selecting that
particular audience?

2) Which target message did your team decide to focus your campaign on? What is the
overall message your campaign wants to convey? What is your rationale for selecting that
particular message? Why/how does the message fit the audience you selected?

3) Which folk belief did your team decide to dispel in/through your message? What is your
rationale for your selection? Why was your selected folk belief the best one given the
focus of your message AND your target audience?

4) Using the paper and markers your team has been provided, please draw a 2visually
depiction of your Teams campaign message.

Module 3
1Each main question has multiple sub questions embedded within them. Be sure to answer every
part of the question.

2 The choice of language and images in efforts to raise awareness of violence against women
needs careful considerations. Some types of messaging and imagery can reinforce the myths,
stereotypes and victim-blaming attitudes that perpetuate an environment conducive to violence
against women. Explicit imagery of violence and abuse may attract attention through shock
value, but it is important to consider the implications of such an approach

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Race, Racism and White Privilege
In-Class Activity

Racism Alphabet Part I

Racism is a complex issue and there are many social


groups that are marginalized by it. The term racism
describes prejudice and discrimination based upon
perceived ideas about differences between people.
Racism can emerge in social beliefs and practices, or in
political systems that differentiate between people based
on racial or ethnic qualities. It involves the assumption
that people of a particular race share inherent traits,
abilities and qualities, and often that people of different
races deserve different kinds of treatment within society.
The term is often associated with practices such as
prejudice, violence, discrimination and oppression based
on racial differences.

Given the above description, examples of racism can be


found in our society from A-Z and to prove it, your team
will be given 15 letters of the alphabet and you all need
to identify an act, behavior, law, practice, etc., past or
present, that exemplifies racism in that it serves to create
unequal treatment between social groups. Each example
you provide should correspond with one of the letters you
have been given. For example, if you have the letter C,
then you will need to identity some form of
racism/discrimination/oppression that starts with a C.
Once you have identified the word (or phrase) then you
need to describe what it means and the ways in which it
contributes to the inequality of a racially subordinate
group. Here is an example:

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C = Colorblindness. Colorblindness is the racial ideology
that posits the best way to end discrimination is by
treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard
to race, culture, or ethnicity. This ideology lends itself to
inequality because it ignores the immense impact that
past racial injustices has had and is still having on
different racialized groups in this country.

Once your team has completed this portion of the


assignment you can start the second portion of the
assignment.

A=

B=

C=

D=

E=

F=

G=

H=

I=

J=

K=

L=

M=

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N=

O=

P=

Q=

S=

T=

V=

X=

Y=

Z=

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Module 3
Race, Racism and White Privilege
In-Class Activity

Racism. Stops With Me! Campaign Part II

After viewing the documentary, White Like Me, a recurring


comment on the reflection exercise was What can I do to fight
racism? In Australia, there is a national campaign currently
underway called Racism. It Stops With Me. Using this same
theme, your team will design an UMass Amherst focused
campaign of your own. The overall theme of your campaign will
be Racism. It Stops With Me, but the visual depiction must be
based on the sub-theme of your campaign, which will be based on
one of the concept/practices you named in the Racism Alphabet
exercise. The visual depiction should clearly reflect the racist act
you want to end.

Rationale Part III

1. Who is your audience? Why?

2. Which form of racism did your team decide to end in/through


your campaign? What is your rationale for your selection?

3. What fallacies of racism did your team decide to dispel


in/through your campaign? What is your rationale for your
selection?

4. What kinds of WIP attributes did your team decide to dispel


in/through your campaign? What is your rationale for your
selection?

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The Five Fallacies of Racism
In the article What is Racial Domination? the authors discuss racism in
America, and how society is deeply divided by the inner workings of racism
because their limited or misguided understanding of the topic. The authors
identified five prominent fallacies that one should avoid when thinking about
racism.

Individualistic Fallacy: Racism is based on intentional ideas and


prejudices. Racism is a crime and there are two groups of people in the
world: racists and non-racists.
Reality: Racism can be unintentional in our thoughts and habits. Racism also
happens at the institutional and structural level.

Legalistic Fallacy: Abolishing racist laws and the principle of racism


automatically and completely abolish racism in practice.
Reality: This fallacy is harmful because it is very clear that this is not the
case. For example, Brown vs. Board of Education ruled against segregation in
schools over fifty years ago, but schools remain drastically unequal. There
are many laws that individuals do not abide to, and racism is one of them.

Tokenistic Fallacy: The presence of people of color in powerful positions


signifies that racism is over and no longer exists.
Reality: Non-Whites have made significant gains in political and economic
power over the past fifty years (Obama, Oprah). However, many people of
color still experience disadvantages or live in poor conditions. The successful
people of color have overcome obstacles to become the exception rather
than the norm.

Ahistorical Fallacy: History is impotent and inconsequential today. The


legacies of slavery, colonialism, forced segregation, and race-based
exploitation are to far removed to matter to those living in current society.
Reality: Todays society is directed, constructed, and molded by the past.
Race is a historical invention. Many events in Americas distant past are
the most consequential in shaping present-day society.

Fixed Fallacy: Racism is fixed-constant across time in space. Individuals


who partake in this fallacy think of racism as something that does not
develop and may think, Has racism increased or decreased in the past
decade? These individuals also tend to think of racism as a violent and
obvious act.
Reality: We cannot adequately quantify racism. Racism in America assumes
different forms throughout history, and it has clearly changed dramatically
from the twentieth century. We should not ask, Have things gotten better or
worse? but we should note how different todays society experiences racism
compared to our parents and grandparents generations.

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Components of White Institutional Presence

In the article White Institutional Presence the author


argues that predominately White institutions do not have
to be explicitly racist to create a hostile environment. The
fact that White culture permeates the language traditions
and learning requirements makes them racialized.
According to the author, White Institutional Presence
(WIP) is the institutionalized fusion of White worldview,
White supremacy, and White privilege and the
manifestation of WIP can be placed into four categories.

White Ascendancy: This is the primary attribute of WIP. It refers to the


thinking and behavior that arise from White mainstream authority ad
advantage, generated from White history of power and domination. This
includes a sense of superiority, entitlement, and domination over racial
discourse, and White victimization.

Monoculturalism: The expectation that all individuals conform to a


scholarly, singular worldview. This view stems from beliefs in the superiority
and normalcy of White culture. For example, concerts, student government,
architecture, musicians, and activities of a campus only reflecting the
interests of the majority of white people.

White Estrangement: The distancing of whites physically and socially from


people of color. In general, there is very little interaction between white
students and students of color on college campuses. For example, white
students who grew up in a predominantly white community, lack the
understanding and tools of how to navigate in a more multicultural, diverse
environment. White people may also avoid interactions with people of color
in fear that they may do something construed as being racist.

White Blindness: This attribute is based on the idea of colorblindness, or


thinking that everyone is the same. This idea makes race an illegitimate
subject for conversations or when considering legal policies. This arises from
the failure to recognize white privilege, racial identity, and ideology. By
ignoring the subject matter, it is not considered at all and ultimately leads to
even less consideration and respect for people of color.

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EDUC 115
Module 4 Case activity

1) Define the following terms:


a. Social Class:
b. Social Stratification:
c. Upward Mobility:
d. Wealth:
e. Power:
f. Prestige:
g. Subjective Social Class:
h. Objective Social Class:
i. Internalized Classism:
j. Vicarious Living:
k. Cultural Imperialism:
l. Dominant Group:
m. Subordinate Group:
n. Implicit Bias:
o. Stereotype:
p. Privilege:
q. Accumulated Advantage:
r. Accumulated Disadvantage:

2) Using a minimum of five of the terms above (at least 3 must be from A-J, and at least one
must be from K-R), write a paragraph describing how classism impacts Emilys
experiences. You can talk about things such as:
a. How was this student perceived based on class privilege or oppression?
b. How did this student perceive others based on class privilege or oppression?
c. How was this student treated based on their class privilege or oppression?
d. What was this student granted or denied access to because of class privilege or
oppression?

3) Assuming your group is friends with Emily, what concrete actions can you take to
intervene in how classism shapes her experience (be sure to incorporate the concepts that
you used in Question #2)?
a. Self:
b. Close Family and Friends:
c. School and work relationships:
d. Broader community:

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4) Using a minimum of five of the terms above (at least 3 must be from A-J, and at least one
must be from K-R), write a paragraph describing how classism shapes Matthews
experiences. You can talk about things such as:
a. How was this student perceived based on class privilege or oppression?
b. How did this student perceive others based on class privilege or oppression?
c. How was this student treated based on their class privilege or oppression?
d. What was this student granted or denied access to because of class privilege or
oppression?

5) Assuming your group is friends with Matthew, what can you all do to intervene in how
class-bias shapes his experience (be sure to incorporate the concepts that you used in
Question #5)?
a. Self:
b. Close Family and Friends:
c. School and work relationships:
d. Broader community:

6) Referencing all your previous responses (the definitions, the questions about Emily and
the questions about Matthew), what are the possibilities and restraints of what students
can do to create a less classist environment on campus? Answer the following questions
in addressing this:
a. What is within your complete control to change? Explain.
b. What do you have limited control or influence over? Explain.
c. And what is out of your groups control? Explain.
d. For the things that are outside of your groups control to change, who can change
them? How?

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The New Man Box
In-Class Activity

We are going to create a Man Box after watching a film Guyland: Where boys become men by
Michael Kimmel. (36 minutes)

In this film, Michael Kimmel maps the troubling social world where boys become men -- a new
stage of development he calls "Guyland." Arguing that the traditional adult signposts and cultural
signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood are no longer clear, Kimmel
provides a glimpse into a world where more and more young men are trying desperately to prove
their masculinity to other young men -- with frequently disastrous consequences for young
women and other young men.

In Guyland, boys are expected to behave a certain way. In line with this, in Tony Porters TED
talk, A Call to Men, Porter defines the mainstream ideas of male gender role in todays society.
Porter explains how, from a young age, boys are told to act like a man, which sets into motion
behaviors that disrespects and devalues women. He also introduces the idea of a Man Box, a
figurative box made up of acceptable qualities for men to possess and societys expectations of
how men must act. Males must remain inside of this box to avoid rejection, harassment, or being
labeled as woman-like.

Below are the Traits that Porter defines as the expectations of males in todays society, or Traits
that are inside of the Man Box:
Option A List

STRONG AND TOUGH


EMOTIONLESS
HETEROSEXUAL
AGGRESSIVE AND DOMINANT
DOES NOT ACCEPT HELP FROM OTHERS
PROTECTIVE
ATHLETIC
COURAGEOUS
POWERFUL AND CONTROLLING
EMOTIONLESS/HARD
COMPETITIVE

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OBJECTIFIES WOMEN
Alternatively, though, the Good Men Project has identified Traits they believe would make males
not only better men, but more productive human beings in society, if these were the traits men
were trying to adhere to in order for them to be judged as a real man. These traits include the
following:

Option B List
GOOD LISTENER
AMBITIOUS
COMPASSIONATE
COMFORTABLE IN MULTIPLE ROLES
STRONG IDENTITY
OPEN MINDED
TRUSTWORTHY
HONEST
THOUGHTFUL
CONFIDENT
GENEROUS
RESPECTFUL OF OTHERS
KIND

Assignment Instruction
In this activity, your team needs to choose a specific purpose for creating a Man Box (classroom
interaction, athletic performance, fraternal membership, or dating and interpersonal
relationships), then proceed with Option A or Option B.

OPTION A: Removing Six Traits. Given the purpose for creating a Man Box, your team must
REMOVE the six (6) most harmful traits (from Option A list) from the Man Box as
it relates to the mistreatment and devaluation of non-dominant groups (e.g., women,
non-binary folks, people of color) in that specific setting.

OR
OPTION B: Adding Six Traits. Given the purpose for creating a Man Box, your team must
decide which traits make up the Idea Man Box on Campus and then ADD SIX (6)
traits (from Option B) you consider the most important for college men to posses.
The six traits you select will be the only traits in the Man Box.

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Written Questions

1. What specific purpose did your team select for creating a Man Box? Why?

2. Did your team select option A (removed the six (6) worst Traits) or option B (added the
six best Traits). Provide a rationale for selecting the option you chose.

3. What are your six qualities? List them in order of importance, most important first. What
is your rationale for your selection of the six qualities and your rationale for ordering
seletion?
A)

B)

C)

D)

E)

F)

4. Given the array of social identities we have discussed during the semester, what social
identities are absent (or not visible) in the documentary Guyland? What do you think
contributed to this oversight?

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